I am vexed

It's nearly Christmas. In 10 days' time, if I haven't murdered my immediate family over a disagreement about how best to cook roast potatoes or beaten my inlaws to death with the remote control, I will enter 2014 full of optimism, ready for a brand new and exciting year.

Maybe. 

In anticipation of leaving 2013 behind, here are some things that continue to vex me:

1. Enough with the class shit already. Middle this, toff that, as if it actually means anything. People are people. Move on.

2. Politics. It is a truth universally acknowledged that those who seek power will, once they have it, seek to retain it, and politics seems to me to have become nothing but the attempt to remain in government for the sake of remaining in government. Say nothing that can be misconstrued, offend no one, avoid promising anything. 

3. Decisions are no longer taken. See (2). Views are canvassed, polls questioned, focus groups formed. Government no longer governs, it follows, but those who it follows have neither the information nor abilities necessary to know how to make an effective decision. Result? Bad decisions by timid politicians taking note of an ignorant public. 

4. The X Factor. Fuck off, Cowell, and take 1 Direction with you.

5. Corporate life. Apparently I work in a "service industry" where my clients expect me to be "available". This, I now understand, requires me to respond instantly to emails received while on holiday. "This request was received at 9.30 this morning," I was told the other day by The Annoying One. "It's now 11.30 and the client has called me to complain about your slow response time." I'm on holiday, I replied, and it's only two hours. "Unacceptable!" Oh, fuck off, do.

6. One trick twitter ponies. Hate animal cruelty? So do I. Dislike the Tories? Hey, join the club, there's lots of us about. Talk incessantly about nothing else? Yes you do. #getafuckinglife

7. Tinsel. I don't care how much it costs, I don't care how carefully you drape it over your expensive mantelpiece, and no, the fact that it's Christmas makes absolutely no difference - it looks shit. 

8. It's "Christmas". Not "xmas". "Christmas". I am not remotely religious, I am not in a fervour of any description. This is a grammar ting. Get it right, you lazy feckers.

9. In a similar vein, 140 characters is plenty. Stop mangling the English language.

10. Lists. 

Wall to Wall

Dear Wall to Wall Productions

Thank you for your letter. La Child is delighted to read of your interest, and is flattered that you would like to talk to her about appearing in the next series of Child Genius on Channel 4. 

 

After some careful consideration, she has asked me to respond thus: 

Fuck. Right. Off.

I appreciate that this may be a slightly disappointing response, almost Lyssan in its directness, so allow me, on her behalf, to explain. Being gifted - a genius, as you would have it; intellectual; clever; of high ability; whatever label you feel might be appropriate to burden her with - is not a character trait to be laughed at, or an ailment to be pitied. Children who are gifted are not freaks to be gathered together in a tent for the amusement of the paying public. Pointing and laughing, as a sport, died out a couple of monarchs ago, along with workhouses and cholera.

I say this in the full knowledge that of course Channel 4's general output might lead you to an altogether different conclusion. Made in Chelsea, Extreme Celebrity Detox, Big Brother, not exactly shows renowned for their in depth view of anything, other than the general nastiness of one's fellow man. As @giftedphoenix put it at the time:

 

Channel 4 has so gone to the dogs. Last night it was ten ton testicles; tonight it's Child Genius #strikinglysimilar #gtvoice

— GiftedPhoenix (@GiftedPhoenix) June 25, 2013

 

Now, I know, I know that you've said that the intention is to produce a series that will delve deep into the difficulties of parenting a gifted child. That it's a documentary, not a gameshow. A sensitive look at the issues faced by children who just happen to have been born with an ability to do things that others their age cannot. You've been at pains to point out that children in the past series really enjoyed the experience, that they loved being able to show off what they could do.

 

Such a shame, then, that the last series was so woefully misunderstood by everyone else:

 

This child genius thing on ITV is mind boggling awkward. Precocious socially inept kids and their pushy patents. A psychologist's wet dream

— Graeme Swann (@Swannyg66) July 2, 2013

 

#childgenius NO Parents sad desire to not allow childhood ! Beauty pageants the same SAD BASTARDS LET THEM LIVE AND PLAY

— KATIE MAGNET ❤️ (@KatieMagnet) June 24, 2013

 

 

Anyone watching child genius? What are these parents thinking? #childgenius

— Tim Lóvejøy (@timlovejoy) June 11, 2013

 

Watching #childgenius AKA UK Future Virgins

— Don Ferguson (@DFergPR) July 3, 2013

 

What next? Surely Katie Hopkins wouldn't....?

 

Local 'Gifted & Talented' workshops are stroke of marketing genius. 'My child attends a gifted & talented workshop'. Bragging mum currency

— Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) June 17, 2013

 

You see, as much as we’d like to believe that there might be someone out there with entirely noble intentions, someone with an actual understanding of what it’s like both for the children themselves and for their parents, someone who appreciates the difficulties these children face, someone who wants to produce something that gets those difficulties across to the world at large in a way that will start to turn people away from the tired old stereotypes that the media loves to encourage, I’m afraid it just doesn’t look like that someone is you, Wall to Wall. Sorry.

 

The follow up to "Child Genius" 10 years later "I hate my Teenager, he's an obnoxious tw*t" #childgenius

— Max Brown (@MrMaxBrown) June 25, 2013

 

Yes, that’s precisely what I want for my daughter...

 

Yours not bleedin' likely

Marcos Branza

Energy to go

La Child and I are out having lunch. "I wish," I say, "that I had just a bit of your energy." 

"You can," she says.

"Can I?"

"Yes." She looks around furtively. Turns back, satisfied no one is listening. "Yes, you can."

I ask her how. "Well, my friend and her mum told me all about it today. Do you know how to get to Australia?"

Australia? "Erm..."

"I mean, which direction would you go in order to get there?"

"Doesn't really matter," I say, "it's on the other side of the planet. Any direction will do." 

"But I need to know a direction so I can, er, direct you when you get there."

"I see," I say, even though I'm not sure I do. "Just pick one."

"Would you go North?"

"North works," I say, "North will do."

"OK," she says, "so head North, and when you get to Australia find North Lane."

"North Lane?"

"North Lane."

"And where in Australia is North Lane?"

"It's by the coast. Well, no, not by the coast. It's about half a mile, actually EXACTLY half a mile from the coast."

"Right."

"And when you get to North Lane you have to find the house. It looks like an abandoned house, but it's not really."

"Just a moment," I say, "I'd still like to clarify: precisely where in Australia is this North Lane? Australia is a very big place."

She sighs. I'm clearly not very bright. "Look," she says, and pulls a small plate towards her. "If this is Australia..."

"Yes..."

"...then this," she points to a random spot on the plate, about a centimetre in from the edge, "is North Lane."

"I see," I say again, once again not seeing at all, "but..."

She's exasperated. "It's the bit on the coast of Australia that's closest to England," she says. "This bit, see?"

"Ah," I say, "yes, I see. Thank you."

"Good," she says. "Now, when you find the house -"

"At the end of North Lane?"

"Yes, at the end of North Lane. When you find the house, climb up the drainpipe to the first floor and then climb in through the window on your right."

"The drainpipe?"

"The drainpipe."

"Why the drainpipe?"

"Because it's meant to be abandoned! You can't very well go in the front door, can you?"

"Clearly not," I say. "Please go on."

"When you've climbed in through the window, walk down the corridor and then there'll be a door, this time on your left. Go in there."

"Right."

"And he'll be waiting for you."

"Who will?"

"The man who'll give you the energy."

"Oh, right," I say. 

"But wait," she says, "you have to remember to take me." 

"Do I?" I say, " But I'm there now. Do I have to come all the way back? It's very expensive to get to Australia."

"No, silly, you have to remember to take me with you before you go. I have to come with."

"Why's that?" I say.

"Because I have to be there to give you my energy. It's very clever how he does it."

"The man?"

"Yes, the man. He has a machine. Very complicated, very clever. You're not scared of injections, are you?"

"No," I say, "I'm fine with injections."

"Good," she says, "because that's how he does it. By giving you an injection of my energy."

"I thought he used the machine?" I say.

Another sigh. "Yes, but it uses injections."

"What does energy look like?" I ask, suddenly intrigued. I imagine blue electricity fizzing and sparkling like electrons around a Faraday Cage.

"It's green," she says. "Just green."

"Oh," I say, and immediately she senses my disappointment.

"But it also crackles a bit," she says. 

"Tell me about the man," I say, "what does he charge for this?" I rub thumb and forefinger together. "How much mullah?"

"Oh, it's free," she says, "he doesn't make you pay."

"Really," I say, "that's very generous. Why not?"

She looks around again. Glances over my shoulder at the waitress behind. Lowers her voice. "He's a ghost," she says. 

"A ghost?"

"A ghost."

"I see."

"He learned how to give people energy in Ghostland, and now he does it because he's good."

"A good ghost?"

"Yes."

"What," I say, "did he die of? What was it that did the poor fellow in?"

"Just old age, I think," she says, "that's all."

"How old was he?"

"Oh," she says, "80 or 90 or so. Died in the 1800s, I think. No. No, not the 1800s, 1952."

"That's very specific," I say. 

"Yes," she says, "his wife died first. He didn't mind, though. She wasn't very nice. She was nasty. She just went in the ground."

"How unfortunate. What did she do?"

"I don't know. But she didn't go to Ghostland like he did. He was there a while before he came to the house. About thirty years."

"That's a long time," I say.

"Yes," she says, "but it takes a long time to get used to Ghostland."

"Clearly," I say. "What's it like?"

"What?"

"Ghostland."

She fixes me with a stare. I am an idiot. "I don't know, I'm not a ghost." 

I am chastened. Dinner arrives. We eat.

I think I'm offended by that

Humour is a funny thing. What's one man's roll on the floor, hilarity ensued, stop stop I can't breathe is another's puzzlement and disgust, offence and head shaking. Some people get it, some people don't. Some people like it, others don't. Some humour relies on you having to think about what's being said, the context, the intention, the target, some just needs you to laugh at someone slipping on a banana skin. Point is, it's all subjective, innit?

 

The reason I raise this is because subjectivity isn’t something that social media does very well. Figuring out the subtext in a tweet isn’t always easy. Sometimes, when the person who's talking isn't standing in front of you but is instead just writing stuff down, you have to think a little harder about things. The usual clues aren’t there: the body language, the tone, the reaction of others. So you need to fill in the blanks yourself. Sometimes you read things which in isolation appear to be terrible, but when read in context aren’t. Sometimes, you have to think about it. 

 

Context is all, but it counts for about 3/8ths of fuck all on Twitter, where it recently appears to have gone for an extended holiday. If you've managed to navigate your way through the Ninja Cat videos and the Daily Fail Sidebar of Shame to get to this blog then I suspect you're savvy enough to know all about the sexism/rape brouhaha on Twitter over the last few days. Caroline Criado-Perez campaigned successfully for Jane Austen’s picture to be on the face of the new £10 note. A good thing, and Caroline understandably used twitter to express her delight at her success. Then, as often happens, someone said something, someone else said something else, then others said other stuff and by the end of it you had what could comfortably be called a polarisation of opinion; rape threats on one side, feminist indignation on the other, shouts, brickbats, waggling of fingers, apoplexy. There was the odd slightly ineffectual call for freedom of speech, some leftist ‘hang on eine minute, bitte’ attempts to reintroduce some sense, but mostly just lots of shouting and gnashing of teeth.

 

Much of what was said was distinctly offensive, there’s no getting away from that. It was nasty, and it was unpleasant. And some of it seemed to be more than that; some people seemed to be making proper, bona fide threats, and if so it was illegal and deserving of prosecution, and one chap today has been arrested. That is good. But. There seems to have been a bit of a rush to conflate 'offensive' with 'illegal'. 

 

Anyone who’s either (a) ever studied Philosophy or (b) watched QI will know about syllogism. For the rest of you, a syllogism isn’t, as you might expect, a stupid sperm, but instead is a logical premise in three parts with a major premise, a minor premise and a conclusion. For example –

 

Major premise: all lawyers are humans.

Minor premise: all humans die.

Conclusion: yippee, all lawyers will end up at the bottom of the ocean, har har.

 

Syllogism is good. We like syllogism. Syllogism is logical, and we like logic. But some people, particularly those who in a fit of red-mist offence are in a rush to condemn, can occasionally be guilty of a syllogistic fallacy, or just 'not getting it quite right'. For example:

 

1. All men are humans.

2. Mary is a human.

3. Therefore, Mary is a man.

 

And this has what to do with twitter and the great sexism brouhaha? You may well ask. Well, sit back, relax, kick off your high heels, dear, unpin your hair, have a sip of tea and let me explain. A frighteningly large number of tweeters, all otherwise seemingly sensible people, appeared to be saying that:

 

1. All these tweets are offensive and unpleasant.

2. Some of these tweets contained threats.

3. Therefore all these tweets are bad and should be reported.

 

If you happen to agree with the premise that ‘being offended’ is the same as ‘fearing for my safety’, then yes, it’s a valid syllogism. Aristotle would be proud. Otherwise, you might in fact feel that we’re straying a little too far towards giving people a right not to be offended, and there is, of course, no such right. You can’t cry foul just because you don’t like something. If someone is actually threatening you then it’s an assault, it’s a crime, and would you believe it, there’s a law against that. But if there’s no threat, if you just happen to be ‘offended’, well… whoopee do. In the words of national treasure Mr Stephen Fry:

 

“It’s now very common to hear people say ‘I’m rather offended by that’, as if that gives them certain rights. It’s actually no more than a whine. ‘I find that offensive’. It has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. ‘I’m offended by that’, well so fucking what?”

 

At this point I should say that free debate is a cornerstone of a pluralistic and democratic society, but I’d be stealing the fine words of whoever it is that writes the unfebuckinglievable blog over at http://unfebuckinglievable.wordpress.com, so instead I’ll say simply that there is nothing – nothing – that stifles discussion and debate more effectively than people taking offence. So please, don’t.

 

Lest I should be accused of somehow condoning something I don’t wish to (and it pains me no end to actually have to spell this out, as if it weren’t obvious already), I’d like to make two things completely clear:

 

1. actually threatening to rape someone is horrible, nasty, and criminal. If you do it then you can and should be arrested and prosecuted. A large number of the tweets sent to Caroline Criado-Perez must have been unpleasant in the extreme to receive and I confess it’s hard to see how they can have been intended to achieve anything other than intimidation. Frankly, if you actually threaten any sort of violence then you should be arrested and prosecuted. Any violence against anyone should be stamped on, and I say that without a hint of irony; and

 

2. sexism should be educated out of society. Any prejudice is wrong and, frankly, pointless, but it’s a huge issue and it needs more than the waggling of society’s finger at the odd mindless thug. The way toys are marketed to children, the way childhood is stereotyped, the way the media use sex to sell seemingly everything, the way journalists harp on incessantly about the female figure, all these are things that need to change, and it’s a slow and difficult process. We’re all guilty to some extent.

If you happen to have any views on what I’ve just said, positive, negative or just ‘meh’ then please comment. Tell me. Let’s talk about it. I’m always willing to be proved wrong, to be convinced of the opposite view, to have my horizons broadened.

 

If you’re just offended, well... whoopee do.

Poke me, prod me

So, yes.

 

Been a lovely day, and I've spent it working from home. Or, as it is also known, sitting in the garden soaking up some rays, and I 'ave been mostly lying with my eyes skyward, watching the vapour trays cross cross above my head as aircraft do their thang. And so, a post about flying today: to wit, Sense and Insanity, or The Inherent Madness of Trying to Prove You’re Not Going to Cark it Mid-Flight.

 

If you want to learn to fly in the UK, at some point you’re going to have to go solo. At some stage during your training, after maybe 15 or 20 hours, and after a few take offs and landings on the day just to get you warmed up, your instructor will suddenly say something like ‘I need to pop to the loo, carry on without me,’ and then promptly walk off, leaving you entirely surprised and, more worryingly, in sole charge and possession of a marvellous flying machine.

 

At the risk of getting side tracked, there ain’t no feeling like it. These aren’t very large aircraft, or particularly complex ones. For the most part you learn to fly in a winged wheelbarrow to which someone’s attached a rather pathetic lawnmower engine, and they don’t weigh much. That first time rolling down the runway all on your toddle you’re so paranoid about getting something wrong, and you're concentrating so hard at flipping the right switches, carrying out the right checks, making the right radio calls, watching the right instruments, pulling back on the yoke at the right time and just flying that you don’t pause to think about what effect having only half the weight as usual inside the aircraft might have.

 

Until, of course, you take off. As the wheels leap from the ground (much earlier than you expected) you rocket into the air like a, well, rocket. You realise that what your instructor has been patiently telling you for the past 15 or 20 hours is true – the aircraft wants to fly. As you climb you run through everything you’ve been taught; gain speed, raise the flaps, attitude for 70 knots, trim, left turn at 800 feet, check your temperatures and pressures, left turn on to downwind at 1,200 feet, level off, find 85 knots, trim, call downwind… and look around. No one to your right. Nothing but an empty seat. You're entirely, completely, wonderfully, alone. You are officially flying the plane. You. Little old you. Licence or not, you’re a pilot now. Biggest. Brightest. Cheesiest. Grin. Ever.

 

But. Before your instructor is ever likely to allow you anywhere near an aircraft on your own, you need to get yourself a medical certificate. For private flying, it’s a class 2 certificate. Relatively simple to get, relatively cheap. A basic (ish) examination designed simply to ensure that you’re not going to keel over from a stroke the first time you’re let loose alone in an aircraft above a populated area. If you ever want to get a commercial pilot’s licence, however, it’s a coveted class 1 medical certificate that you need, and that one is not as cheap, nor quite so simple to get.

 

I may have mentioned before that I’ve been wanting to get myself a commercial licence for years, and so you won't be surprised that I'm no stranger to the class 1 medical exam. I’ve made the trek to Aviation House at Gatwick, a rather austere, modern office block where the CAA's special men in white coats live, twice now, and both times I've spent the best part of a day being poked, prodded and punctured for the greater good. I've had my blood taken, I've had my brain waves scanned, I've had monitors strapped to my chest to test my heart, I've filled a number of specimen pots ('what, from over here? Har har. Please put that needle down'), I've had my eyesight and hearing examined. And in both cases I've passed every test, leapt lightly over every hurdle, except one: I have a condition, see. An 'issue' with my eyesight. I have anisometropia, which is a very difficult word to say, and an even harder one to spell, but which simply means that the sight in one of my eyes is different to the sight in the other. I'm very slightly short sighted in my left eye (-1.25 diopters), and quite a bit more short sighted in the other (-3.75 diopters). The limit for anisometropia (the difference between the two eyes) for an initial class 1 medical certificate is 2.00 diopters. 

Oops. No class 1 certificate for me, then. I'm the proud, if somewhat disappointed, owner of a class 2 certificate instead. Well, a lapsed one. One that expired in 2006. 

Except that now things might - might - be about to change. The CAA's own guidance notes now suggest that a failure to satisfy this particular, if I may say slightly odd, requirement (particularly when you bear in mind that the limit leaps to 3.00 diopters on any renewal of the certificate) isn't necessarily the end of the road. Instead, the CAA can now refer you to an ophthalmologist who has the ability to say to the CAA "don't be so silly, he's fine." So on Monday I'm going to book an appointment with my friendly local CAA man-in-a-white-coat at Gatwick and pay an extortionate sum to submit myself to yet another round of poking, prodding and puncturing. Wish me luck.

Time for a rethink

I came across a wonderful blog the other day by @JudithKingston over at Clean Slate (http://wp.me/p2QYex-lP). If you're at all interested in education, and in how we might improve it, please please please go and take a look. As regular readers will know, I have a bit of bee in my bonnet about education, and am particularly taken by the idea of self organised learning. Judith's ideas chime perfectly in tune with my own. 

I don't think anyone still believes our existing educational system is a good one. Whether, like SuperGove, you're a fan of the rote learning of the fifties (in which case all this touchy feely context based learning nonsense needs to go) or you have a belief, as I do, that creativity and interest need to be stimulated and encouraged in a way that the national curriculum simply does not allow, I do think that we need to re-imagine the way we teach our children. 

Quite apart from anything else, the world has changed (and is continuing to change) in ways that our education system struggles to keep up with. 20 years ago a Calvin and Hobbes strip made the point that a cheap calculator could provide answers to more complex mathematical problems than the average school leaver could do if his life depended on it. 

20 years on we have access to more information more quickly than we can make use of. Google is your friend; it can tell me the name of the sixth wife of Henry VIII in less than a sixth of a second. It can list every King of England, it can tell me whether Alfred was in fact the first or not, it can teach me double entry book keeping and how to play bass guitar. I don't even have to be at a desk to ask a question; an iPhone and a half decent 3G signal will do.

Having taken La Child out of mainstream education we've been keen to see what support there may be for home schooling, and the weekend before last we visited a small school in Hampshire called The Heartwood Project. It started out life as an 'educational cooperative', a support group for home schooling, and as its initial cohort has grown so has its aspirations and the services it provides. Please do take a look at their website here: http://www.heartwoodproject.org.uk. 

The school adopts the self organised learning principle, allowing its children free reign in terms of what they want to learn and how. As they are all officially home schooled, there is no need for (and certainly no pressure on) the children to study towards or take any exams, but for those who do want to study towards exams tutors are brought in for specific subjects. Generally speaking, freedom and flexibility is the order of the day, and it seems to lead to a child led environment that the children themselves love.

And it works. The children are all either (at worst) on a level with those in mainstream education or (more frequently) well ahead of it. The idea that if left to their own devices children will veer off into some Lord of the Flies subculture and learn nothing is demonstrably nonsense. If anything, better results are achieved by a less pressured, less structured environment. But somewhere like the Heartwood Project wouldn't work without parental involvement. Being home schooled, the children are all from homes where the parents have, very obviously, taken a more active role in their child's education, so there is a question mark over how well this might work in more mainstream schooling where parents have less time to devote. But I don't think it would make a huge difference. The Clean Slate blog suggests that all learning is really down to three motivating factors:

1. survival - we learn to communicate our need for food early on, for example;

2. goals - how do I reach those tasty shoes? I have to learn to crawl. How do I become a pilot? I have to learn to fly; and

3. interest - I like this, I don't like that, I learn to avoid what I dislike, and learn how to do the things that I find enjoyable.

The point being made, of course, is that children will, almost out of necessity, be drawn to learning irrespective of whether they're formally taught. Children need less teaching and more guidance; less being told, more being asked. 

I'd love to hear from anyone who is either involved with, or has come across, real life examples of self organised learning in the UK, so please do get in touch by leaving a comment below or on twitter (@marcosbranza). 

Arise, Lucifer

Hmm. When do little girls hit puberty, again?

As I sit here on holiday, feet up, half drunk San Miguel on the go beside me, La Child is in the pool using a pair of goggles to beat the shit out of a rubber ring whilst delighting us with a rousing rendition of Let's Go Fly a Kite. Nothing unusual to see here, move along, move along. 

Increasingly, however, La Child has been demonstrating certain...traits. Behaviours. Habits. Acts which when taken in the round would appear to suggest that perhaps certain hormonal changes may be taking place earlier than we would all have liked. To whit: 

'I didn't ask to be born!' 

'I have to do everything around here!'

'It's so unfair!'

Now don't get me wrong, La Child has never been a model of perfection and propriety. Saying please and thank you has always been a challenge. Empathy is not, and has never been, her strongest skill. La Child has always been, well, a bit feisty. She has her opinions and has never been afraid to share them. She has, for some time, been entirely happy to be considered every bit as grown up as the grown ups and I confess that, for as long as she's been capable of communicating with us as one, we've been happy to treat her like one...to a point. But something subtle has changed over the past few weeks. The moods have deepened, the tempers become more frequent. Communication is increasingly a series of grunts, and patience wears quickly thin (two minutes ago I overheard her ranting at her DS, shouting 'you wretched thing!' for apparently not reacting as quickly as it clearly should). An attitude has surfaced that wasn't there before. Every request is met with a 'no,' every question with a shrug of the shoulders, every refusal results in meltdown and accusations of bad parenting. A telling off sees her issuing a threat to call in the authorities. And suddenly she is her own worst critic. Each thing she does is 'rubbish', every attempt at anything is pointless. Life, it seems, has overnight become really quite difficult for poor old Child.

In other words she has, it seems, become a teenager. There are even slight physical changes, breasts seem to be budding, she has an obsession with body hair, mood swings come and go, an apparently constant need to readjust herself, but... But. She's eight. Surely it can't be? Not yet? 

I'm sure someone vaguely old and wifey told me many years ago that children develop in one of two ways: either they're angelic pre-pubescents and go on to be evil teenagers, or they're horrific pre-pubescents and become easy teenagers. Ha ha har har de har. To date we've had feisty pre-pubescent with notes of Right Cow followed by an escalation to Hint of Lucifer. If this carries on we'll soon be at Full Sauron and the fall of civilisation as we know it.

Home schooling, you say? Yes. Hmm. Well.

Politician, redeem thyself

The ECHR decided today that the whole life tariff without possibility of parole breached Human Rights legislation. Some people don't agree.

Well, either we believe in the possibility of redemption, or we don't. 

If we don't then whether someone has stolen a sweet from the pick and mix at the 99p shop or they've stabbed their mother to death with a toothpick, we should remove them from society forthwith and for good. After all, they'll never learn their lesson. They will never realise that what they did was wrong. If released, the sweet thief will go to bigger and more audacious crimes (an apple from a fruit stall, 5 litres of unleaded from an unguarded pump, the odd bout of brutal serial killing) while the Toothpick Stabber of Tatenham Corner will carry out a bloody coup of Brussels and instigate World War III. 

If we do, however, believe in redemption, then the opportunity surely must apply to all. The punishment may differ, the length of time before someone will be believed, the hoops through which we'll expect them to jump, may change depending on the perceived severity of the crime, but how can we say that any one crime is so severe, so beyond the pale, so depraved, abhorrent or evil that there is no possibility whatsoever of coming back from it?

The justice system has never been simply about punishment. The justice system has always served multiple purposes, and has always had three important limbs. The first is punishment, certainly. Society needs retribution, a feeling that justice has been exacted, a way for victims to feel that in some way the balance has been redressed. And we also need the second limb, protection. Sometimes punishing the Slasher of Southampton isn't enough, we need to remove him from society until he ceases to pose a danger. And then there's the third limb, redemption, a way to help those who commit crimes to see the error of their ways and to show them how to become useful members of society again. A justice system that only does one or two of these things is a system that will do nothing but fill our prisons with rotting meat.

Chris Grayling, our esteemed Justice Secretary, believes that some people are inherently evil. That they are so evil, that the justice system need only be used for two of the three limbs: punishment and protection. The third, redemption, is unnecessary. Otiose, if you like, pointless. The Toothpick Stabber is so very bad that he can't possibly ever be genuinely sorry for what he's done. And frankly, even of he is, well...tough. What the Toothpick Stabber did was so very bad that he should never be given the opportunity. See this key? Chuck it in the sea, it won't be needed again.

If you happen to believe in absolute good and absolute evil then perhaps this view makes sense to you. But even the most violent and unpleasant religions (I'm looking at you Catholicism) preach the redemptive power of forgiveness. The eye for an eye contempt for which Chris Grayling appears to hold his fellow man is Old Testament rhetoric, swept away - if you believe in this sort of thing - by the rather more hippy like anni domini. 

Now, alright, we all know that Mr Grayling has an eye on the politics here. He is, after all, a politician whose first love is re-election. If that means toadying up to the Daily Mail harbingers of hate, then so be it. The 'really evil' comment, seen in that light, is nothing more than an attempt at hogging the limelight for a few precious seconds, a soundbite to ensure mention on the 10 o'clock news. His desire to see the ECHR relieved of its powers - as likely as Chris Grayling getting any further with his political career - a call to arms to the rightwing press, irrespective of whether he actually believes the nonsense he spouts. 

But. But, but, but. What's wrong with our political system that talking such crap is seen as a necessary part of it? Why do so few of us vote? Well, let's start with Chris Grayling and go from there.

Elbows out

To be fair, it was only a matter of time. 

Easyjet's not unusual. It's no longer a case of having the option of checking in online, the benefit of an additional service, something to make your life easier. Now you have to check in online, and after the failed experiment of forcing people to elbow their way to a good seat on an aircraft, a sort of blue rinse survival of the fittest, now seats are allocated to you. But no longer at the airport, where you might be able to speak to a human and suggest that, as you're travelling with a child, perhaps a couple of seats together might be a good idea. No, now seats are allocated online, when you check in online, because checking in at the airport is no longer an option. 

So here we are, in an aircraft full of families split up by an algorithm that clearly doesn't work. I'm sat in row 26 while my wife and child are in row 25. But they're not together: one is one side of the aisle, the other on the other. We're the lucky ones. We're within touching distance of each other. I've seen one mother have to tell her 9 year old son that she'll see him when they get there, leaving him sandwiched between two strangers ten rows behind his mother. Safe enough, I grant you. Where's he going to go? Perhaps it's all a wonderful adventure to him, a taste of independence. But perhaps he'd rather be at next to his mother for the next two hours, rather than two grown up strangers? And perhaps his mother might prefer to not entrust his safety to two complete strangers in the - admittedly highly unlikely - event of an accident?

Asking cabin crew whether this happened a lot, the splitting of families on flights, they said it was relatively unusual, but that 'well, they probably didn't book their seats early enough.' So this is a deliberate policy then, to force people to prebook seats? A shrug: 'it would avoid the problem.' 

The frustration is that pre-booking is of course a money spinner for the airliners. Choose your own seat online and that's a premium service which comes at a cost. Fair enough, you get to see a plan of the aircraft, you get to choose your favourite seat. But I no longer have the option not to. It's no longer a human eye that roves above the melee, allocating spaces on the basis of common sense. It's an algorithm that cares not a jot for relationship or age or need. And yes, of course some passengers will offer to swap seats, but many don't, and why should they have to? 

In short? It's bollocks. Much, frankly, like these headphones I just bought for the flight. You gets what you pay for, but at least the headphones were cheap.

But. 

Yes, there's a but. Having sat here for the past two hours, I've come to realise something quite marvellous about all this. A quite unintended consequence of the money grabbing. Most families have been split up over two or three rows, which has seen them lean across those sitting between them, speaking over the aisle, carrying on conversations over a distance. And wonderfully this has meant those surrounding them have been brought into the conversation. Suddenly, and for the first time in my entire flying experience (and I've been doing this a few years), we're all talking to one another. People are standing in the aisles laughing and talking and interacting. I'm loathe to give Easyjet credit for this, they've hardly set up their online booking policy on the basis that it might encourage people to be friendly to one another, but I'm suddenly equally loathe to condemn the policy outright. Sometimes good comes from bad.

New beginnings start here

So, La Child walked out of school today knowing that it was quite possibly the last day she'd ever have to set foot in one. 'How do you feel?' we asked her. 

A shrug of the shoulders. 'Meh,' she replied, 'don't care. Spain tomorrow!'

So much for the tears, the wails and the much gnashing of teeth of everyone else. To be fair to her, leaving this school and not going to another hasn't ever been likely to be an issue for her. Leaving one place for another has never been an issue, whether it's been a case of moving school or house (and we've done plenty of both). La Child isn't someone who finds it hard to tear herself away from things. Well, other than perhaps books. 

So this is it. The start of a whole new journey. An adventure of frighteningly large proportions. To a certain extent there's a cushion, a safety net provided by her age and abilities: if it doesn't work out, then it's easy enough to put her back in the system in a year or two without any real harm to her education, and if anything it'll give her an experience that few children have the chance to enjoy. 

No ties, free from high fees, no longer being restricted to term dates, or a particular area or country... I honestly don't think we've even begun to truly understand the freedom this is likely to give us all, or the opportunities that this is in fact going to give La Child. And I have to say, I am so ridiculously jealous of her.

My last post was all about missed opportunities and, deep down, the weight of expectation. If we achieve nothing else, then I want to ensure that La Child feels no weight whatsoever. Whatever choices she eventually makes, whatever she ends up doing, I want there to be no possibility at all that she may be swayed by what she thinks we want for her. 

I've made a thing, ever since my very first post, of not really knowing what we're going to end up doing, or where we'll end up, but that's only half true. I know where I want to end up. I know what I want to do. I want to fly. I want to make flying my life. I've always wanted to make flying my life, but the weight of expectation has always intruded. When I was 17 it was the hopes and aspiration of my parents that stopped me. I don't mean to say that they would have been anything less than 100% supportive if I had chosen flying over university, they would have been wonderfully supportive, but I knew that deep down they'd be a little bit disappointed and I didn't want them to be. Then when I started working it became an overwhelming feeling that I had to make a go of the law, that I had a career, that I've come so far with it that of course I should continue. Flying could be a hobby, a weekend diversion, it needn't be serious. Then La Child was born and the pressures shifted slightly to a need to support her, to pay the bills and the school fees. A need to give her time, something that a flying career (and the training needed to get there) would prevent me from giving her. 

Now, though... Now life has taken an entirely new path. La Child is no longer at school. La Child is a little bit older, and I can afford to spend some time doing other things. La Child no longer requires an expensive private education, so we've no longer a need to live in an expensive area near an expensive school within commuting distance of a well paying job.... We've been through all this before. Now suddenly the opportunity to finally have a go at actually achieving a long standing dream presents itself. 

There are barriers, of course. I'm older than your average newbie pilot. My eyesight's not the best. I need to sit the exams again and pass flight tests. I need to pass medicals. Houses need to be sold, lifestyles need to change. But today marks the start of what could be the very beginnings of the process, and I have to say I'm really quite excited about it, even if La Child seems entirely nonchalant. 

We're off for a two week break to Spain tomorrow. Time to talk, and plan, and look forward with a ruddy great big smile on all our faces.